Market economies
The market or capitalist system of economies redistributes wealth from the poor to the rich and from future generations to the current generation. It degrades the human spirit by cultivating greed at the expense of all other human attributes, for greed is the motor of this economic system. Those who triumph in this system make all of society's social and economic decisions in order to serve their personal interests. Yet these decision makers are psychologically sick. Despite having every imaginable need catered for, they would rather see the destruction of the earth by nuclear war or environmental exhaustion than lose a day's profit.
So called "mixed economic systems" exist. These are market systems in which profits remain private, losses are socialized and an economic safety net is provided sufficient to prevent food riots. All the evils of the market system remain. In the current situation 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly has given support to some in Russia who see a "role" for "market mechanisms". The evils of the capitalist system that I have listed are an inextricable part of any system involving "market mechanisms". Accordingly, I urge the 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly not to give any moral support to forces in Russia or anywhere else that support any aspect of market economies.
David Kault
West End, Townsville
Dinosaurs
"What's good about dinosaurs?" Karen Fredericks asks (GLW #117). Obviously they are excellent for corporate profits at the moment (in billions I'm told), also for persuading people that earth life is basically competitive (red in tooth and claw); that co-operation didn't exist in those times!
I haven't seen the film Jurassic Park and don't wish to, but if Karen had viewed the excellent TV series recently The Dinosaurs (ABC), she would have learnt otherwise. Most of these creatures were actually plant eaters, probably the first real mothers; getting together in nesting colonies, much like penguins etc do today. Indeed some scientists believe they may have evolved into the birds! They cared for and defended their young, were warm blooded not cold, so were misnamed "lizards".
What's so good about them? Their huge appetites (the brontosaurus particularly) must have so devastated the plant life of that period, that if the green plants hadn't come up with a speedier method of reproduction pretty quickly, they would have rapidly died out! Fortunately, they did — and produced the first flowers. Thus dinosaurs made our planet beautiful and I'm angry that by emphasising the terrifyingly awesome carnivores of that period, Hollywood should exploit and promote the lack of knowledge of our children.
Incidentally, talking of life-forms we know little about, when I heard a bloke on radio say "the platypus lays his eggs and suckles his young", I nearly choked on my tea. How about an article on sexist language?
Connie Frazer
Findon SA
Olympics
While many vocal New South Welshmen and women are walking around, trance-like, with dollar signs in their eyes, contemplating the prosperity they imagine will be theirs from the Olympics, there is a large and growing body of people very concerned at the implications of a Government gone crazy.
We have the sorry scenario of vital services for the aged being slashed because of a Superannuation "bungle" by the NSW Government. Money used to fund Home and Community programs are being siphoned off to pay for this "bungle". To those whose life experience is selfish and hedonistic, the implications of this will be unimportant, but for thousands, they may face the loss of their independence as it is these services which allow them to stay in their own homes.
To those who breathe in the hype of a "bread & circuses" life-style, it would be unimportant that NSW doesn't even have the cash to maintain equitable public health care, and yet can volunteer to throw a giant party for the rest of the world in the vague hopes the more prosperous countries will "discover" us and we'll be on the map. We've already sold off large slices of our country to these countries, and they know exactly where we are and what we're worth.
Who is responsible for the hype that had people bounding about as if they had just won the lottery — the lottery that used to pay for our hospitals? How on earth are we ever going to pay for this crazy spectator extravaganza? Our children will be paying for our insanity for most of their working lives.
If one public hospital in Australia has to be closed because of lack of cash; if one nurse is disemployed; if one honest farmer is forced to leave his land because of the country's debt, then we just cannot afford the big party.
Where exactly is all the money coming from? Can anyone provide me with a complete and honest breakdown of the costs involved in this Fahey Folly?
Therese Mackay
Port Macquarie NSW
[Edited for length.]
Sport
The article by Tony Smith (issue 117) on the sponsorship and commercial gain in sport missed the point entirely. The relationship between sport and capitalism goes much deeper than advertising and promotion. Regardless of the widespread "love" of sport, the fact that Olympic Games fever is now with us means that the left has to confront the ideology which lies at the very heart of sport itself.
To put it another way. Do we want Australian teams to be strong, to win in international competition? If so let's look at the others waving the same flag. Do we want to find more "stars" like Warne and Slater? What are these sports stars really good for? They are usually jerks, which is not surprising since they have to spend most of their time on training for a mindless occupation. Their claim to fame doesn't lie in their generosity or commitment to the future of humanity or to anyone but themselves. Is this the kind of popular hero the working class really needs?
For every winner their are thousands of losers. Sport tells us where we belong in the hierarchy of capitalist relations. It teaches mindless loyalty.
I don't believe it should be necessary to spell this argument out in full. The boot should be on the other foot. It should be up to anyone (like Tony Smith) who implicitly says that sport has some value to be defended, to explain to us what possible value it can have for most Australians. It is a means of entertainment and escape, but at what price? Let's not confuse sport with games in general, physical exercise or group activities. The Australian "love of sport" is a problem which we need to face up to at some time or another.
Paul Petit
Adelaide
Land titles
There seems to be an unquestioned assumption that the validation of land titles in contravention of the Racial Discrimination Act since 1975 is an urgent necessity.
That is not the case.
If Aboriginal people have been illegally dispossessed of native title over that period they are the victims of theft.
To redress that wrong, those illegal dispossessions should be overturned, not validated.
C.M. Friel
Alawa NT
Human rights
Why has the Australian media kept bashing the Chinese about Tienanmen Square and therefore Beijing not being a worthy host for the 2000 Olympics, and yet kept silent about human rights records of other potential hosts?
I don't hear the press chanting "Atlanta 1996 should be boycotted because of the Waco massacre and the U.S. government's use of tanks against its citizens"; not to mention the invasion, and 5000 killed, in Panama. Nor did I hear anything about Germany's instigation of the violent breakup of Yugoslavia or its continuing support of a Greater Croatia for Berlin's disqualification. Or that Manchester shouldn't have got the games because of the British government's involvement and suppression in Northern Ireland (Britain's Tibet!). All I've heard about the Istanbul/Turkey bid is that it was low key — nothing about the horrific human rights record of murder and torture and their brutal suppression and bombing of the Kurds in Southern Turkey and Iraq.
This of course leaves the purer than pure Sydney/Australia bid. Whilst a few Uncle Toms in the Aboriginal community might have enjoyed playing the house negro in the Sydney 2000 bid; most find it as revolting as the 1988 Bicentennial celebration. And why; because their human/land rights are whitewashed in the name of progress and profit. No mention of course of Australian troops on Bougainville and Australia's supplying of all the guns, bombs and helicopters and any other aid the PNG government needs to turn Bougainville into an open cut mine for Australia/CRA. No mention of the Australian government's tacit involvement in the genocide in East Timor and its cynical Timor Gap oil agreement with Indonesia. Nothing about Australia's blockade of Iraq and the direct cause of some 300,000 deaths, or of its direct involvement in the invasion and killings in Somalia.
On any reading none of these countries was worthy of hosting the Olympics; yet only one got bashed — I wonder why? Surely not a vote buying exercise by the Australian mass media.
Robert Wood
Surry Hills NSW
Open letter to Gareth Evans
The friends of most of us "ordinary people" are far removed from your lofty circle of ASIO, CIA, MI5, Pentagon, US Presidents etc. You base your whole attitudes, beliefs, religion and duties on their wants and demands. But your "friends" may be the lowest form of life on the planet.
Your performance in books, media and foreign affairs decisions have long since ceased to be of benefit to Australia, and that includes your American methods in Bougainville — which briefly are —
(a) compromise or corrupt the local leader (in this case, Papua) or remove him in any number of ways, then use (with supplied armaments — in this case helicopters, SAS) his police and military to clear away permanently the obstruction to the doubtful national interest (in this case — the CRA copper mine, the transnational interest — not Papua's, not Australia's.
(b) Reduce its peoples to misery and slavery.
There are about 60 nations occupied by US influence as per (a) above, on the pretext that they may have become communists. Their economies and indigenous societies are now destroyed, their elected leaders replaced and new "Generals" appointed by the US interests supported by CIA, Pentagon and various US Presidents (your friends) to keep each area safe for US greed.
The United Nations is a complete flop. The Security Council is a cozy place for US/UK/French wealth and power, so it should be force-fed with "democracy", with all the 160 odd nations having an equal vote on each issue. In that way we may save the planet and its 3rd world peoples.
US Professor Noam Chomsky and former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark will advise you how to go about it all. They never learned to waffle.
John R. Clancy
Sutherland NSW
[Edited for length.]
Sex vs gender
There appears to be a growing trend in the mainstream press, that is becoming reflected in the progressive press, to make use of the term gender where sex is more appropriate.
Have you ever seen a questionnaire that asks "What gender are you?", or demands such as "gender equality on juries" or statistics comparing, for instance, health differences according to gender? Do you wonder what it means?
The two terms have quite distinct definitions and should not be used interchangeably.
Sex is a biological term that is either male or female, two quite distinct and separate categories. Gender is a socially constructed concept based upon the broad categories of feminine or masculine.
Gender as such is subjective, and lacks meaning unless put into a context. A particular person can have both masculine and feminine traits dependent upon who is doing the defining, the attributes under investigation, and what they are defined against or compared to.
Utilizing the term gender instead of sex will lead to gender losing its social identity. This can then reinforce the myth that masculine is male, feminine is female leading us all along the biological determinist path that denies our individuality and the effects of social relations upon our actions and choices.
Kevin L'Huillier
Hobart
Medical chauvinists
When will all those bloody chauvinist males stop hurting women?
We hear every day in the news how the legal profession attacks the rights of women, how they condone domestic violence and sexual harassment of women all around the place both at home, at work and even at centres of higher education as our universities.
Now we are presented with the unwarranted increases in medical fees requested and imposed on the community by the biggest and strongest chauvinist union in the country the AMA. These increases are going to hurt more us women who, in our condition of single parents or pensioners, are the ones who are going to suffer from higher medical fees.
We already have a country owned by multinational companies and pharmaceutical firms who control the prices and demand whatever they want for their potions. We know that they constantly manipulate the press and the news to propagate exaggerations and other scare tactics on mysterious illnesses that affect one child in a million but which could be easily cured if everyone in the country pays them a certain amount of money, which in total costs the country several hundred million dollars a year in vaccines and other unnecessary branded drugs.
And who controls these multinational companies, of course men.
In addition to the above, who is directing the economy and proposing all those stupid solutions to unemployment based in economic rationalism, favouring cheap imports and the destruction of South Australian jobs? Of course those disgusting men, Keating and Fraser, who rule the right wing of the ALP and the Reserve Bank, who else?
Male doctors are only motivated by greed and the desire to dominate women, they over-service them, perform unnecessary surgery on their bodies and prescribe tranquillisers to keep their minds under control so they can endure domestic and sexual abuse.
Boycott your local male doctor, choose one of your sisters to take care of your family!
Women united will never be defeated!
Karen Jennings
Magill SA